There can be no doubt that cigarette smoking is related to the combustion
of tobacco and paper. Unfortunately, however, the fire at the tip
of a cigarette can ignite more than just tobacco. It has long been
recognized that cigarette smoking poses a fire risk not only to the smoker,
but also to the immediate environment such as the person's house, store,
car, or even commercial airliner. However, it has only been recently
that the degree of this danger been recognized.

Cigarettes, Fires, and
Deaths

According to a recent report by the United States Fire Administration,
cigarette caused fires killed over 2,300 men, women and children in the
United States each year (1,2). Local, state, and national fire statistics
all agree in listing cigarette caused fires as the leading cause of fire
fatalities. In fact, one study of 530 fire fatalities in Maryland
during a six year period between 1971 and 1977 found that 45 percent of
fatalities occurred in fires that were caused by cigarettes. The
second most common cause of fire fatalities was due to heating equipment
malfunction, but accounted for only 8 percent of fatalities (3), with all
other causes falling far behind. Additionally, fires caused by cigarette
smoking produce about 6,000 injuries a year. These statistics are
especially tragic when it is realized that these fires are all preventable,
probably more so than any other cause of fire! Also, the people who
are killed or injured in a fire caused by careless cigarette smoking include
not only the smoker, but also innocent occupants of the building such as
family and friends. Careless smoking is often associated with the
person falling asleep at night with a lit cigarette, or carelessly tossing
into the trash can a cigarette which was not completely extinguished.
These fires are all preventable because smoking is preventable.
Loss of life is not the only tragedy associated with cigarette
caused fires. In 1981, there were 65,000 fires caused by cigarettes
while resulted in a staggering $300 million in property damage. Needless
to say, this conflagration adds considerably to the costs of fire insurance
to everyone, smoker and non-smoker alike!

Prevention of
Cigarette Induced Fires

Three ways to prevent fires caused by cigarette smoking have been
proposed (1). These methods are patient education, environmental
change, and cigarette manufacturing change.

Patient Education. The first method is to
encourage persons who smoke against smoking in bed and to remind them to
dispose of their cigarette butts properly. Taking care of the burning
cigarette may not be practical as many fires induced by cigarette smoke
are caused by the smoker falling asleep with a lit cigarette. Also,
fully half of all cigarette fire victims are intoxicated and frequently
may not be of the proper mind to take care of their lit cigarette in a
safe manner.
Environmental Change. The second approach which
is (as might be expected) favored by the tobacco industry, is to make the
environment more resistant to fire from a burning cigarette. It is
proposed that fire in sofas and beds may be prevented by adding chemicals
and changing their construction Indeed, some progress has been made
in the reduction of cigarette fires using these methods. However,
the situation will certainly not change overnight as the existing furniture,
carpets, and bedding will probably remain in use for several decades and
cannot be easily rendered fire resistant. Additionally, a tremendous
cost would be passed on to the general consumer for making furniture fire-resistant.
It has been estimated by the furniture industry that between $1 billion
and $2 billion would be required in additional costs to everyone to achieve
this goal. Even if these laudable goals could be achieved within
the next few decades and fire-resistant furniture replace regular furniture
throughout the land, there would be the new concerns about the mutagenic
and carcinogenic potential of these new chemicals that would be added to
the environment (1). Finally, it seems backward to make the environment
more resistant to cigarette induced fires rather than to make the cigarettes
more fire-safe.
Cigarette Manufacturing Change. The third method
to reduce fires within the home is to modify the source of fire, the cigarette.
It is not too surprising that the tobacco industry claims that this is
impossible. This is a natural position to take by the cigarette industry
for many reasons. First, current cigarettes burn at 700 degrees C
for approximately 30 to 60 minutes without being puffed (11). According
to fire experts, this is more than enough time to ignite a sofa or chair
into which the cigarette might inadvertently fall.
In the cigarette manufacturing process, there are many variable
which might be changed to produce a safer cigarette. These might
include the paper porosity, tobacco moisture, tobacco packing density,
chemical additives, etc. The call for a fire-safe cigarette based
upon somehow changing the cigarette manufacturing process dates at least
back to the 1920's when the Massachusetts Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers
tried unsuccessfully for a cigarette that would go out within a few minutes
after being put down. Over the years since then, dozens of patents
have been issued for self-extinguishing, more fire-safe cigarettes.
However, the tobacco industry claims that these methods would either not
be practical or possible, or would require the addition of toxic chemicals
to their cigarettes.

There have, however, been several studies that have demonstrated
the feasibility of a fire-safe cigarette. A study conducted by Arthur
D. Little, Inc. in Cambridge, MA concluded that if cigarettes could be
made to extinguish within 10 minutes after being placed on furniture, combustion
would most likely not occur. Thus, it is not necessary to make a
cigarette that would immediately extinguish itself. Rather, it is
probably only required that cigarette to fizzle out within ten minutes
to significantly reduce the possibility of fire.

This is not an impossible dream either. There have been
over 95 patents issued throughout the world for methods to render a cigarette
fire-safe to self-extinguishing (4). These methods have received
some critical evaluation. One patent tested by the California Bureau
of Home Furnishings in the State Department of Consumer Affairs has been
found to successfully cause cigarettes to self-extinguish (5).

There is little question that a fire-safety cigarette is a technical
possibility. Two brands that are already being produced have been
shown to be fire-safe: More and Sherman's. These cigarettes are currently
being sold nationwide and are more fire-safe than all the other brands
tested (1). In short, the tobacco industry is already doing in some
small measure what it has said is impossible. However, it is also
apparent that there is little incentive, economically speaking, to produce
cigarettes which spontaneously extinguish. Rather, the opposite is
what is happening. Cigarettes are produced which are purposely made
to continue burning, probably on the assumption that nobody would buy cigarettes
if they had to be repeatedly lit. Documents from P. Lorillard and
Philip Morris Research Centers maintain that the continuous slow burning
of cigarettes even when it is not being actively inhaled, is encouraged
by adding citrate and phosphate compounds or calcium carbonate to the paper
or wrapper (6). The addition of compounds encourage the cigarette
to continue burning like a fuse when presumably they might spontaneously
go out otherwise.

The U.S. Department of Commerce through the National Bureau of
Standards has proposed several possible other means whereby cigarettes
could be encouraged to self-extinguish. These goals included the
following recommendations:

Cigarettes with one or more of these construction parameters
are already in production. According to our best information, producers
do not even know that some of their cigarettes have lower ignition propensity
(1,7).

The American Burn Association asked cigarette companies for their
help in the manufacture of slow-burning cigarettes. Presumably, this
association sees daily, first-hand evidence of the unnecessary tragedies
brought about by cigarette produced house fires. The Board of the
American Burn Association wanted to know the opinion of the cigarette manufacturers
before they would support a fire-safe cigarette campaign. There was
no reply (1).

Consumer Products
Safety Commission

Congressional interest in fire-safe cigarettes may occur sporadically
and be related to a tragedy that occurs in a single congressman's district.
Such a tragedy occurred in 1979 in the political district of Rep. Joe Moakley
(D-MA) where a family of seven were killed in a cigarette fire. In
that year, Rep. Moakley introduced a fill in Congress to require that cigarettes
self-extinguish within five minutes of being left unattended. The
following year, Sen. Alan Cranston (D-CA) and Rep. Moakley took a different
tact by introducing bills to direct the Consumer Products Safety Commission
to determine whether a fire-safe cigarette was feasible.
The Consumer Products Safety Commission has jurisdiction over
15,000 products, and in the area of fire safety, it has jurisdiction over
such diverse items as fire resistance standards for children's sleepwear,
mattresses, carpeting, etc. Unfortunately, however, the Commission
lacked jurisdiction over the product, cigarettes, that produced more injuries
and deaths than any other. Interestingly, this jurisdiction hiatus
was specifically designed by Congress when the agency was created in 1972,
and again in 1976 when Congress barred the Commission from regulating "tobacco
or tobacco products." Unfortunately, the Commission never gained
this authority, causing Rep. Moakley to complain in a speech about the
"misguided policy of making the world safe for the cigarette...While hundreds
of millions of dollars were being spent to make furniture, rugs, and mattresses
resistant to cigarettes, nothing was being done to make the cigarette less
likely to ignite."

Local Government Legislation

Because of the public concern, legislation has been introduced
on the state level to mandate production of a slower burning cigarette,
largely unsuccessfully. For example, in 1980 Oregon became the first
state to attempt such legislation. This bill called for fire-safe
cigarettes to be sold by the state three years after passage of the bill.
The bill was passed by the Oregon Senate but then killed in a House committee.
Since then, eight states (including New York and California) have attempted
passage of legislation without success.

Even though these bills were eventually defeated, the prospect
of dealing with different regulations from state to state might have encouraged
the tobacco industry to seek a respite. Congress passed the Cigarette
Safety Act of 1984 with support of the tobacco industry, which called for
a technical feasibility study for making cigarettes more fire-safe with
"a reduced propensity to ignite upholstered furniture and mattresses."
State legislatures informally agreed to put legislation on hold until the
results of this study came out. The Cigarette Safety Act created
a 15-member Technical Study Group with members from the government, health
and fire prevention groups, and the cigarette and furniture industries,
to oversee a series of technical and economic studies. The study
finally concluded that thin cigarettes made with more porous paper and
with the tobacco less densely packed were considerably more fire-safe than
their counterparts. Additionally, the study noted that, "some of
the best performing experimental cigarettes had per puff tar, nicotine,
and CO (carbon monoxide) yields comparable to typical commercial cigarettes."
The latter conclusion rebutted a common tobacco industries claim that more
fire-safe cigarettes might be more unsafe with respect to smoke content.
Finally, the reported concluded that, "it is technically feasible and may
be commercially feasible to develop cigarettes that will have a significantly
reduced propensity to ignite upholstered furniture and mattresses."

The tobacco industry has claimed, however, that cigarettes manufactured
with the above-noted changes would be impractical, and would produce a
cigarette that would be a commercial failure. Indeed, Dr. Alexander
Spears, executive vice president of Lorilland, Inc. told the advisory group
that smoking a cigarette with tobacco less densely packed would be roughly
like sucking a thick milk shake through a straw. Dr. Preston Leake
of American Tobacco Co. stated that, "I don't think you could give them
(the experimental cigarettes) away."

Obviously, more research is needed to determine whether a commercially
viable, fire-safe cigarette can be produced. It does seem, however,
that a cigarette which would both please the smoker and yet be fire-safe
could be manufactured if sufficient research could be applied to the problem.

Public Relations

It has been suspected that one reason why the tobacco industry
has been so slow to manufacture or even support research concerning a fire-safe
cigarette is their vulnerability to liability. If it can be shown
that such a fire-safe cigarette is possible, the industry might then be
open to the accusation that deaths during fires caused by cigarettes could
have been prevented and then be bombarded by lawsuits contending that the
industry is at least partially responsible for these deaths.

The Tobacco Industry apparently realizes its tenuous position
in the public eye and has attempted a publicity campaign to better its
image. The major brunt of this publicity campaign has been to contribute
money and support to fire prevention programs. While these contributions
are certainly laudable, it is indeed ironic that they come from the industry
that is at least indirectly responsible for so many house fires, deaths,
and loss of property. The Tobacco Institute and Philip Morris have
contributed money and equipment to many fire organizations throughout the
country, often in states that are considering passage of legislation that
would prohibit tobacco manufacturers from adding burn-enhancing chemicals
to cigarettes. Horace Kornegay, Chairman of the board of the Tobacco
Institute, has named New York City, Seattle, Des Moines, Boston, Milwaukee,
Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, and Portland, Oregon as recipients of money
from the tobacco industry (1,8). This publicity campaign has apparently
been working as the New York City's Fire Prevention 1982 Award went to
Philip Morris USA. This award was presented to the corporations which
have helped "foster and underwrite the department's fire prevention efforts
(9)." In April 1983, another award was given by the Fire Department
of New York:

In Appreciation for his corporation's ongoing financial
and technical support of the Fire Department of New York, Shepard Pollack,
president of Philip Morris USA, was recently named a deputy chief of the
department.

Additionally, the Tobacco Institute has developed and distributed
a fund-raising and membership recruitment kit to over 4,000 volunteer fire
departments. Naturally, there is often some bias in these distributions.
For example, according to the Tobacco Institute's instructor's manual for
the "Fire Call" senior citizen program, "cooking-related fires" kill 500
people each year and cause 8,000 to 12,000 injuries. On the other
hand, "careless smoking" is described as "one of the leading causes" of
fire deaths in the United States. Technically, since it is the leading
cause, it does qualify as "one of the leading causes" (11).
The largesse of the Tobacco Institute has even won praise from
some of its staunchest critics. A former official of a leading fire
safety group stated that, "Between you and me, five years ago, I wouldn't
even sit in the same room with people from the Tobacco Institute".
This changing attitude was echoed by Tom Nyhan, a captain with the San
Francisco Fire Department, who stated that, "Up front, they (the Tobacco
Institute) were told you can give us money or grants, but that doesn't
stop us from going after you on the fire-safe cigarette." Although
the fire department was close to insulting to the Tobacco Institute, they
still were provided with a grant.

Innocent Victims

The battle for a cigarette which is more fire safe is still not
over. Mierley and Baker (10) have noted that during a three year
period, 39 percent of all cigarette associated fire deaths were in innocent
victims. This is a particularly troublesome issue for the population
at highest risk, including children, the elderly, disabled people, and
infants. Everybody living next to an apartment or even house with
a cigarette smoker can be an innocent victim if a fire is started at night
while asleep. If somebody must smoke, then the least the tobacco
industry could do to protect innocent lives would be to produce a slow-burning
cigarette that would self-extinguish and hopefully be safer to the large
population at risk.